Electronic Device Pioneer Reflects on a Life of Wonder
A 15-year-old boy walks down to the local dump in Depression-era Newark, NJ, to scavenge for the spare parts he needs to assemble a bicycle. First he spots a wheel that just might do the trick. Then a chain. Before long, he has uncovered enough pieces to cobble together a makeshift bike that he can ride around this desperate town. What he doesn’t realize yet is just how far this bike will take him.
With an unbridled curiosity and a passion for electronics, Morris Tischler would go on to create a great number of things with his talented hands, including an early cardiac pacemaker that would one day reside in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
But despite leading a remarkable life in which he obtained nine patents for his creations; rubbed shoulders with a couple of heads of state; and worked, taught, or lectured in more than 90 countries, precious little information is available about his work.
That is, unless one were to pay a visit to his office in Baltimore, MD.
Now 84 years old, Tischler is reflective about his career and his journey, which, without even a hint of bitterness, he says “got lost in the woodwork.” But his meticulously maintained scrapbook — which Tischler has titled My Journey — tells the true tale of a man whose contributions to medical technology have perhaps been overlooked.
“I’ve prepared this book for my children, and their children,” says Tischler, thumbing through the pages of the scrapbook.
Tischler is believed to be the inventor of the first “solid state” — or transistorized — external cardiac pacemaker. In 1958, he provided one of his devices to Howard M.C. Snyder, MD — personal physician to President Dwight D. Eisenhower — three years after the president’s heart attack. Although Snyder sent a letter of thanks to Tischler for the instrument, it is not known if the president ever used the device.
Developed in the 1950s and patented in 1963, Tischler’s “Cardiac Pacer” resembled a small transistor radio of that era, and weighed two and a quarter pounds. It had two knobs, one to control pulse-rate settings and another to regulate the strength of the electrical current supplied to the heart. It came complete with wires and two chest plates, which could be removed and replaced with surgical needles.
To accompany the pacemaker, Tischler developed a cardiac monitor to keep track of a patient’s pulse, to activate the pacer, and to send an alert signal to a doctor or nurse. He was awarded a patent for the monitor in 1964.
But just how does a teenage boy sifting through a dump during the Great Depression become an inventor of novel medical devices?
An Innovator is Born
“Life in Newark was horrible in the 1930s,” recalls Tischler. “So in 1937, my family moved to the little fishing town of Crisfield on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. My father was a tailor, and he opened up a men’s clothing shop there.”
Young Morris quickly became skilled with hand tools by helping his father repair the shop’s parquet floor. And while his father nurtured Tischler’s general handiness, his brother, Louis, sparked his fascination with electronics. “Lou was an amateur radio operator, back in the early years of radio,” says Tischler. “He taught me how to repair radios, and even helped me build my own ham radio station. I was absolutely fascinated with it.”
“I’ve seen the various technologies that have come along in my lifetime, from the television to the computer to the new hand-held devices. But I doubt that anything could be more fascinating than building an old crystal radio. It was so magical at that time to hear — without using electricity — people talking and singing, with their voices just coming out of the air. I can close my eyes now and still hear those sounds.”
To satisfy his growing curiosity, Tischler taught himself all he could about transistors, electricity, and radio transmissions, and eventually became an electronics and radio instructor. Over a period of about 20 years, he taught the principles of electronics, circuit design, radio transmission, and other related subjects to students of all ages, from children up to adults.
From the School to the Hospital
By the mid-1950s, he had acquired a degree in electrical engineering from Johns Hopkins University and a master’s degree in technology education from the University of Maryland, and was an electronics instructor at Forest Park High School in Baltimore. Tischler’s grasp on electronics had grown so firm that he began spending his evenings teaching the principles of electronics to medical doctors. The idea behind the course — which Tischler taught at the University of Maryland — was to help doctors better understand the evolving medical technologies they suddenly found themselves responsible for.
One of Tischler’s students in the evening course was a cardiac surgeon named R. Adams Cowley, for whom the University of Maryland’s shock trauma center is now named.
Cowley, who was quickly taken by Tischler’s unique knowledge, encouraged Tischler to come work with him at the University of Maryland Medical Center.
“I didn’t know anything about hospitals, but I took the job anyway,” says Tischler.
Because he understood electronics, Tischler’s first assignment at the hospital was to fix a faulty oximeter. After he successfully completed the task, an intrigued Cowley said to him, “Ok, if you’re so smart, why don’t you build something that will make the heart pump?” He then handed Tischler a stack of reading material about the heart and its function.
“I read the materials and learned about how the heart works,” recalls Tischler. “Although I found the heart to be a magnificent organ, I didn’t really think of it as an organ at all. To me, it was just another electronic circuit.”
In 1955, Tischler began developing his first cardiac device. Between 1955 and 1957 he tested it only on animals, until one day when Cowley called for Tischler to quickly bring the instrument up to the operating room.
“When I arrived at the OR, I saw Dr. Cowley on the floor with a patient. He was squeezing the man’s heart, trying to get it to pump. I had never seen the inside of a man’s chest until that moment. But Cowley instructed me to use the instrument on the man, and I plugged the needles into the ventricle. Next thing you know, the man was shouting, ‘turn it off, it’s hurting me!’”
That year, Cowley and Tischler started a business called Electronic Aids. But while they had a workable, lifesaving device at hand, they did not have backgrounds in marketing or sales.
“We started Electronic Aids, and we manufactured a few of the pacers,” says Tischler. “The device worked for us. But the problem was we had to talk to doctors about the product, to market it. Some were interested, and some could care less.”
Tischler presented the instrument to Westinghouse, which saw its potential and began distributing it under the Westinghouse brand.
A Special Recognition
Although sales of the device were not overwhelming even after Westinghouse began distributing it, an early version of Tischler’s Cardiac Pacer now makes its home in a place of honor — the study collection of Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History.
“A student of mine contacted me back in the 1960s,” remembers Tischler,“and said, ‘you’re not going to believe this, but your device is in the Smithsonian.’ I couldn’t believe it.” Donated to the museum by the University of Maryland in 1965, Tischler’s device enjoyed a rebirth in 1977 as part of an exhibit called Triumph Over Disability.
Today, Tischler is the president of a company called Overseas Marketing Group. His company develops — among other things — biomedical training tools and electrical training equipment for technical schools. He is also working with school districts in the Baltimore and Detroit areas to provide simple, educational biotechnology programs for children, so that they might experience the same wonder he felt when he experimented with his first crystal radio.
“People always say to me, ‘you must have made a lot of money over the years,’” Tischler chuckles. “The truth is I really didn’t. But I am happy that I was involved in work that a lot of people are enjoying today.
“I recently had a former student come to me and tell me that he owes his career to my teaching. That made me feel so good.”
Opening Tischler’s scrapbook, one would find several old newspaper articles discussing his work — including a 1963 New York Times piece about his Cardiac Pacer. One would find letters of commendation written to Tischler by a variety of “important” people. One would even find an old photo of him lecturing students overseas, with the Shah of Iran listening intently to his words.
But today, Morris Tischler is not interested in sharing his scrapbook with the world. This book is for his children, and their children.
AAMI News: September 2006, Vol. 42, No. 8